Chapter 35 #3
“My baby,” Sylvia moaned, fangs pinching into her neck; then Aster’s nape, her collarbones. Aster felt herself get wet even in the bath. Everything felt warm, and gooey, like she was passing through something—passing back into something.
“Go down,” Aster said. “I want—”
Your wants don’t matter.
“No, they do, I want—”
You don’t matter. You’re nothing. You’re just a toy.
“No,” Aster hissed, and Sylvia stopped. Aster shook her head. “Not you, fuck. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—we shouldn’t do it this way.”
Sylvia withdrew, and Aster expected her to tell her it was okay, to say something placating, to tell her to just not worry about it, but she didn’t do any of that.
“Aster,” she said softly. “Take your time. There’s no right way to do any of this.”
Aster blinked.
Her whole life, long before she’d been Turned, her compulsions had ruled the way she lived. She did things obsessively or not at all. Punished herself for things that looked arbitrary to other people. Dealt with nonsensical thoughts that looped over and over.
And even though Sylvia had always been understanding, Aster had, in turn, always tried her best to hide that part of herself—to do the counting in her head, practice her rituals while Sylvia slept—because she thought, at some point, if she exposed to much of her raw strangeness, Sylvia would realize she was irredeemably wrong, and give her an ultimatum.
Aster had always felt like she was hiding a monster inside of a large trench coat. That if she minimized her—always irrational, she thought—desires, and kept them hidden and out of sight, then maybe she could keep Sylvia forever.
She was starting to feel very foolish.
And her brain was starting to feel a lot like hers again.
“I know what I want,” Aster said softly. “And it isn’t to boss you around.”
Before Sylvia could get a word out, Aster pushed her gently back against the other side of the tub. She pressed her lips to Sylvia’s, and used her free hand to trail down Sylvia’s stomach in the water, then paused, right at her thigh.
She felt Sylvia squirm, pressing her hips up, and Aster almost gave her what she wanted immediately. But this was about what she wanted, too.
Aster pulled back slowly, watching Sylvia’s eyes as she took a long breath in, readying herself.
“I want to make you feel good, because… I am in love with you, Sylvia. I’m in love with you as a person, as myself, not a thrall, not a pet, not a toy,” Aster said, and Sylvia’s eyes widened—a smidge with panic, but she didn’t pull away, didn’t stop her, didn’t interrupt—so Aster continued, feeling the words come up her throat like needles, but she needed to say them, she needed to force them out.
“And I need… I deserve to know if you love me, too. So please. Just tell me. Whatever the answer is.”
Aster watched Sylvia’s bobbing throat, her wide pupils, her frozen mouth, and waited for, at worst, another Suggestion, or at best, a quiet rejection. Because Aster didn’t know if Sylvia loved her. She hoped, sure. But she didn’t know.
“Okay,” Sylvia said. And it wasn’t I love you, because with Sylvia it was never that simple, but it wasn’t a no either. It wasn’t running.
“Okay?” Aster asked, quizzically.
Sylvia nodded again. Then she leaned in, pressed her lips to Aster’s and whispered, shallowly, “Touch me.”
“...Touch you?”
Aster’s mind reeled. Was this Sylvia avoiding it? Was this her taking the reins and putting them back somewhere safe, somewhere she could understand—sex, and nothing more than that? But before she could ask, Sylvia’s hand found hers again.
“Trust me,” she said, repeating Aster’s sentiment from earlier. “Okay?”
And Aster would trust her with the world, so she did.
“Okay.”
She slid her hands down Sylvia’s stomach, and quickly found her center, dipping inside. It was warm, otherworldly warm—and Aster nearly broke completely, forgetting everything she ever wanted, when Sylvia immediately bucked up against her.
“Oh god,” Sylvia moaned. “God, Aster. Aster. Baby.”
The pet name made her groan, and Aster nestled into Sylvia’s chest, pressing kisses to her collarbones, then descending down to her breasts.
“Can I—”
“Yes, yes, yes. Please.”
Needing no more encouragement, Aster sucked a nipple into her mouth, and she felt Sylvia get impossibly wetter, melting around her fingers.
“Oh god,” Sylvia moaned, her hips seizing around Aster’s palm. “You feel way too fucking good—I can’t—you need to catch up—”
Aster could faintly hear Sylvia muttering nonsense in the background, but she was too consumed with the feeling of Sylvia in her mouth, Sylvia around her fingers, to notice, that was until Sylvia took her by the hair and gently dragged her off her breast.
“Aster.”
Aster looked up at her, momentarily afraid she’d done something wrong, but she wasn’t afforded much time to worry about it—because Sylvia was forcing her down into the water, climbing over her so her center was gliding against Aster’s leg, and her hands were suddenly dragging down Aster’s stomach, towards—
Aster moaned impossibly loud.
She nearly came the moment Sylvia touched her.
If there was one remnant from the thrall still living at the very edges of her brain, it was that Sylvia owned her body like it was her property—she could just dance her hand around Aster’s thigh and she’d probably come just at the thought of it, clenching around nothing.
But she wasn’t clenching around nothing.
Sylvia’s fingers were melting around her clit, and Sylvia’s mouth was pressing incessantly to her lips, then her cheeks, then her forehead, just sowing adoration into Aster’s skin.
Aster’s hips jittered. She felt herself falling apart. If this was Sylvia’s version of a love confession, she’d take it. She didn’t need the words.
“Don’t come yet, baby,” Sylvia whispered.
Aster groaned. “You’re making that really difficult.”
Sylvia laughed lightly against her skin. She slowed her hand, and Aster was about to protest, but Sylvia didn’t give her time to.
She leaned back, so she could look into Aster’s eyes, and she said, quietly, with a storm that Aster couldn’t quite comprehend lurking behind her gaze, “Bite me.”
Aster crinkled her brow, but she was in too deep to question anything at this point, and Sylvia was still twitching her finger against her, teetering her off the edge of a cliff, so she nodded, and sunk her teeth softly, carefully, into the skin of Sylvia’s neck.
“Oh god,” Aster cried out, and she knew instantly that it was too much. That she wouldn’t be able to hold on. “I’m going to—”
And then Sylvia’s teeth, like a guillotine finding its victim, sunk into her neck.